Under normal power system operating conditions, electrical power generators operate in a state where the mechanical power supplied to the generator is substantially equal to the electromagnetic power drawn by the load. When a short circuit fault occurs in the power system, particularly on the transmission line connected to the generator, the electromagnetic power decreases along with the output terminal voltage of the generator. The power mismatch, which is the difference between the mechanical and electromagnetic power, will lead to rotor acceleration and, without intervention, will damage the generator.
In order to avoid such damage, generators include out of step protection mechanisms that take the generator offline when a fault occurs. In addition, some generators include resynchronization systems that resynchronize the generator with the power system after the fault is removed or corrected. However, there is no coordination between the out of step protection mechanism and the resynchronization systems of these generators. Accordingly, even if the resynchronization system could resynchronize the generator with the load, the out of step protection mechanism may be activated and take the generator offline. Thus, without coordination between the out of step protection and resynchronization mechanisms, the benefit of having a resynchronization mechanism is reduced.
To avoid these and other difficulties, there exists a need for methods, systems, and computer readable media for adaptive out of step protection for power generators with load resynchronization capability.